As promised, "Life on the Other Side of The Pond" and how a Robin over here is a tiny Old World Flycatcher, but over there it's a beast of a Red-breasted Thrush #UKBirding #USBirding #NatureMatters www.sciencebase.com/science-blog... More about this particular Robin in the ALT

I lit up for just an hour or so after dark last night. A single Silver Y graced the trap with its presence, which was nice #teamMoth

Lit up for an hour after dark last night. Just a Silver Y #teamMoth

Regulus regulus, the Goldcrest. Its scientific name a tautonym, both genus and species the same because this bird is the "type" of the genus, it's the first and defining species. US viewers will perhaps recognise it as a kinglet and it is, indeed, a kinglet type species. #UKBirding

A brave little moth kept Wogan at bay this evening #teamMoth It's got a marking like this on each forewing, it's one of the The moths, you know it...

These look wonderful, I've ordered a pack of all the moths #teamMoth

The mythical presence of the late, great Sir Michael Terence Wogan was felt in our Cambs garden last night, after many days, no weeks, nay months of awaiting his arrival #teamMoth The current Mrs Sciencebase was not in the slightest bit surprised given that it persisted down all night

To be honest, the only sites I noticed as being down were my site, Cloudflare itself, and the sites I used to try and check whether a phone number was legit

Disabled Cloudflare on my site hours ago...could be I'm the only live website right now...

More on moth names #teamMoth This post looks at the The moths www.sciencebase.com/science-blog...

Sorry...not sorry...I had to use an LLM to write a plugin for a fairly complicated process I needed to run on my website. It worked first time. Maybe there was a shortcode or a plugin out there already, but I couldn't find it. Amazing that these sophisticated autocomplete tools can generate machines

It's quite hard searching for a science friend online whose forename is Grant...he might as well be called Peers Review

The marvellous madness of moth names #teamMoth www.sciencebase.com/science-blog...

Empty trap this morning #teamMoth But, still no Wogan as there was an RDP and a Vine's hanging around the garden last night

At this time of year, there's almost always someone who'll post a photo of a murmuration where the starlings are flocking and it looks a bit like a big bird in flight... There are about 1000 birds in this flock, there were easily a couple of dozen such flocks on the patch we watched this evening

I was going to do another themed gallery for #teamMoth taking astronomy as a focus, but The Satellite aside, it's just a load of lunar things. Star-wort sort of Lunar Double-stripe, Lunar Hornet Moth, Lunar Marbled Brown, Lunar Thorn, Lunar Underwing, Lunar Yellow Underwing, Lunar-spotted Pinion

Still no Wogan #teamMoth VC29 9C, dry In fact, far better, an NFG last night - Scarce Umber. Almost missed it as it was resting on the conservatory window frame behind the trap and I only spotted it when I resetting the trap.

I occasionally put the phrase "wannabe rock god" in my social media bios...well to that end, this evening I will be rehearsing 1999, In the Navy, Everybody Wants to be a Cat, and Love is an Open Door with the panto pit band 🤘

For our sins, we just ordered a new dishwasher. The one we used for 13 years gave up the ghost a couple of years ago and has sat dormant in the kitchen while we did the washing up in the sink ever since. The new one has Zeolith drying technology...

It was ridiculously wet here last night, as it presumably was almost everywhere...but didn't get below 10C Still, I lit up #teamMoth 5 of 8 including a Brick and an Epirrita sp.

10 of 9 keeping Wogan away in Cambs #teamMoth NFY: Mottled Umber and Palpita vitrealis

Not all ducks quack, some do Frankie Howerd impressions #UKBirding Seahouses, Northumberland May 2022, for what it's worth I tried to upload here, but it's failing to process www.tiktok.com/@sciencebase...

Grey Shoulder-knot was 40th new for garden of 391 total species this year for me; previously I've only seen it in Hayley Wood, west of Cambridge in 2023 #teamMoth

No Wogan tonight, thanks to a Brick and an NFY Grey Shoulder-knot in Cambs #teamMoth

I think I've finally memorised the chord changes for "Everybody wants to be a cat" for #panto but, of course, they'll go awry once we're rolling with it with keys and drums...they're nothing hard and they go to the expected places, there are just quite a few

Lots of reports of dead swans and more on our local patches from the birding chatgroups. Not good. #UKBirding There are idiots out there with shotguns still wildfowling too, not only causing putatively infected birds to disperse, but potentally handling and even cooking birds carrying the disease

Still no Wogan...but then it's perhaps too warm for him, 12C here in Cambs for me. 390th species of the year - Black-spotted Rustic Also, a bunch of the usual reprobates: Large Wainscot, LBAM, Least Carpet, Red-green Carpet, Turnip Moth #teamMoth

I'm sure I could look it up, but what's the etiquette on kilt wearing, if you're only 1/8 Scottish?

Wogan yet to make an appearance here in Cambs #teamMoth Handful of the usual, but also another nice Cypress Carpet

After 18 years singing with a community choir with the same leader and pianist, it was quite an odd feeling going to rehearsals today with a new MD and accompanist at the Saffron wing...lots of old friends there, of course, from the old massed choir, enjoyable session, but still an odd feeling

The Sprawler turned up last night, great moth #teamMoth It was on the fence near the trap I seem to have it in my April records, twice, this year, which seems odd...it's an October-December flyer, isn't it?

From a couple of nights ago, Australian Orange-tip. 2 seen in our Cambs garden, along with a handful of the more usual suspects #teamMoth Tachystola acroxantha first arrived in the UK around 1908 carried in on imported plants, it's been spreading over the last few years

A shameless plug for my brother, who has created this book! Ideal for children, or if you just enjoy a bit of mindful colouring, etc 🙂 Thanks. #TeamMoth amzn.eu/d/amK2hXu

Had a great jam session with a couple of mates in our newly rebuilt "studio" today (it's just the conservatory, but with a proper roof now). 09h30 start, no booze, no drugs, not exactly Rock 'n Roll, but close...

Just a couple of handfuls last night in Cambs #teamMoth 12 of 7 But first NFG for a while - Australian Orange-tip, Tachystola acroxantha (2x) Diamond-back Moth, LBAM 3x, Least Carpet, Red-green Carpet, Silver Y, Turnip 3x

I know you're dying to know how old I am, well here's a clue, when I started out as a science writer, I was writing material for CD-ROMs, such as Encarta and Dorling Kindersley etc

So...I've got first pit band rehearsal for this year's show...will I still be lighting up tonight? #teamMoth #WhatDoYouThink

Fairly apparent where the "Feathered" comes from in the name of the Feathered Thorn moth #teamMoth. The "Thorn" not so much, that's derived from the look of the larva, which is very twiggy and will set itself erect at 90 degrees to a twig on its foodplant to hide from predators in plain sight

Took me a while to relocate this Feathered Thorn #teamMoth after it fluttered off some garden shelving next to the trap and landed on this bit of brick

#teamMoth #NoWogan 12 of 10 last night, including first Feathered Thorn in my Cambs garden since 7th Nov last year

Corvid was harrying a Common Buzzard over the fen, I got a few snaps and in this one it looks like the tables were turned they weren't. What I'm not 100% on is whether this is a Carrion Crow or a Northern Raven, couldn't hear any cronking at the time so assuming crow #UKBirding

I've swapped out the green synergetic tube for an old Wemlite UV CFT, see if *that* will bring December in. #teamMoth

In 2022, I found some set-aside with 20+ Clouded Yellow. It was subsequently razed but wild again this year. There were 6-7 CYs today and a solitary female Common Blue. #Butterfly Have these migrant CYs naturalised?

Eponymous lepidopterist moths #teamMoth www.sciencebase.com/science-blog... Please let me know if I've missed any or there are mistakes...ta

Still no sign of Wogan here in Cambs for me, despite the cold and wet #teamMoth First Brick of the year (very worn, not the one pictured), brings garden total for 2025 to almost 9000 moths of 387 species

More moth name silliness #teamMoth, this time the British moths named after other animals www.sciencebase.com/science-blog...

So, moths with body parts in their names... #teamMoth #JustForFun including tongues, feet, snouts, wings, shoulders, and hearts www.sciencebase.com/science-blog...

Great White Egret with piscine prey at RSPB Fen Drayton #UKbirding Not ten years ago, seeing this bird species here would've been a mega. But, there were 12+ here. They're naturalising in England thanks to climate change and the abundance of crayfish in the lakes of northern France, #ChannelHopping

We're into the magical December Moth time of year, despite the name, so I've put together the Calendar Moths #teamMoth www.sciencebase.com/science-blog... To paraphrase Calendar Girls paraphrasing Jaws: "We're going to need bigger traps"

Still no sign of Wogan in our Cambs garden #teamMoth 10 degrees C, wet Black Rustic, LBAM, Turnip 3, Vine's Rustic 3, White-point 2